Navajo Nation Museum , Window Rock

(928) 871-7941
The Navajo Nation Museum has extensive holdings of art, ethnographic, archaeological, and archival materials. Our archives collection includes over 40,000 photographs as well as a wide variety of documents, recordings, motion picture film, and videos. The archives are heavily used by authors, researchers, and publishers as a source for historical photographs. The museum collects anything that helps document the culture and history of the Navajo people, including selected materials from Tribal and non-Indian neighbors. Most of the collections are available for on-site study and exhibit loan.

The museum was established in 1961, but for most of its history remained a very small entity, not much more than a one-person, one-room operation which was periodically moved from one inadequate space to another. In 1998, the Museum was moved into a recently-built 54,000 square foot contemporary purpose-built building which it shares with the Navajo Nation Library and Research collection. As part of this rebirth, the Navajo Nation Council authorized a comprehensive staff list and a major increase in budget to support the staff and new operations. In 1999, the Museum took over management of the entire building, for its own operations and meeting/conference facilities

In beauty I walk With beauty before me I walk With beauty behind me I walk With beauty above me I walk With beauty around me I walk It has become beauty again It has become beauty again It has become beauty again It has become beauty again

Older Features

Key Quotes
"The internet itself is a giant repository that could be used to help our language learners around the world. I'm a big supporter of mentoring learners in whatever fields they have, so I started recording audio and recording native professionals in the region. 'Who inspired you to become who you are?' The concept went from a desktop version to a mobile version.

As we update the app - which is a database - it automatically pushes out the content to all of the users. The audio itself is streaming.

This is a lifelong learning project for this generation and the generation after that.

We are promoting the concept of community-based sharing, which is a type of crowdsourcing. The important element on the app is the feedback button which allows users to request words and phrases to be translated. This is updated to the database. We can record friends and other enthusiasts of the language and all of this is uploaded to the database." - Kialo Winters, Founder of Diné Bizaad Dictionary apps

FYI

The name of Canyon de Chelly was derived from the misspelling and mispronunciation of the Navajo word for the canyon. The Navajos call the canyon "Tseyi" which is pronounced 'say-ee.' Eventually the word became "de Chelly" which is pronounced as 'de-shay'

The Navajo Parks and Recreation Department is one of the oldest programs in the Navajo Nation government. It was established in 1964 and is charged with the responsibility to the the Navajo Nation's primary caretaker of special lands set aside for preservation. The Mission of the Parks and Recreation Department is to wisely manage Navajo parks, monuments and recreation areas for the long-term benefit of the Navajo people and government. The Navajo Nation is comprised of essentially private lands, therefore all non-Navajo visitors must abide by and comply with the laws, regulations and policies promulgated by the Navajo Nation government, including those governing Navajo parks, monuments and recreation areas.

Blue, is connected with south and Tsoodzil (Mount Taylor), northeast of Grants, New Mexico.

Yellow, is associated with west and Dook’o’oosliid (the San Francisco Peaks), near Flagstaff, Arizona

They call themselves Diné, which means The People. To the rest of the world they are known as Navajo. Creation stories tell of struggle and evolution through three spiritual worlds, and finally emergence into this world and their present homeland, Dinetah. A homeland defined by four scared mountains; Mt. Blanca in central Colorado, Mt. Taylor in New Mexico, the San Francisco Peaks in Arizona, and Mt. Hesperus in southwestern Colorado. It is an area covering 25,000 square miles and the largest reservation in the United States. Its landscape includes national treasures such as Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly.